The Rogue's Forbidden Love Rules

To flee the dance hall of Wales House, scene of Lady Cornella Woodville's most recent and most humiliating gaffe, she blinked back tears. The night air was crisp, the welcome edge of spring rushing her down the great marble steps, desperation shortening her steps and propelling her into the shadows of the great dark gardens. She finally was safe, let out a deep sigh and slowed her pace, right down there where once she'd been hidden from view.

Elizabeth would never have been inside that horrible room without had it not been for her mother: she would've been looking for her eldest daughter out of doors without a guide, and would be livid with her.

It was an utter failure for her first season. She hadn't even been on the scene for a month. Elizabeth ought to have been the belle of the ball, the eldest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Aragon after all, raised and channeled for a life like this: perfect manners and stunning beauty, a lifetime of a beautiful polka, but Elizabeth was less than perfect. Of course, that was the problem. Elizabeth was a good dancer, of course, with impeccable manners, but a beauty? She was nothing if not pragmatic, and with good reason, she did not believe she was one of those.

She should have known it would be a disaster and plopped herself down on a marble bench just inside the Wales hudge maze. Three hours had passed since she'd hit the ball, and no one had asked her to dance to any of the men who weren't truly awful. Two invitations from renown fortune hunters, one from a crashing bore, and another from a baron, the likes of whom had doubtless been no more than a day shy of seventy - she hadn't been able to maintain her forced happiness longer than that.

She was obvious that she wasn't worth much more to the ton than the sum total of her dowry and her ancestry, and the total of that sum was not large enough to warrant a dance with a partner she might actually like. The truth was, no, Elizabeth had been overlooked by eligible, coveted, young bachelors for more than half of the season. She sighed. Tonight had been the worst. And for some reason it didn't feel like it was bad enough that she was only visible to the boring and elderly, because tonight she felt the stares of the rest of the ton. She muttered to herself, looking down at the gown in question, her breasts being a good deal larger than fashion dictated. Not a belle of the ball had ever been so crowned in such a vibrant shade of mandarin sunset. Or some such hideous frock for that matter. Her mother had assured her, the dress was the very height of fashion.

The countess had informed her that she was factably wrong given that Elizabeth had suggested the gown was not the most flattering to her form. By the time she had been tried on and the modiste had flitted around her, poking and prodding and squeezing her into the gown... her mother had promised that Elizabeth would look stunning. As she looked at her transformation in the dressmaker's mirror, she was starting to agree with them. In this dress, she looked gorgeous.

Stunningly awful. She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms tightly around her, warding off the evening chill, in mortification. "I cannot return. I will, just have to live here forever." Elizabeth gasped, shot up in surprise and heard a deep chuckle in the shadows. She managed to pull herself up to full height and take in the shape of a man but her pounding heart, whilst slowing, did little to quell the trembling that worked its way down her limbs. She spoke before she had a chance to get away, allowing her dislike of the entire evening seep into her tone.

"That, sir, is something you really shouldn't be sneaking up on people in the dark."

"It isn't gentlemanly."

The deep tenor of his voice swept over her, he responded quickly.

"My apologies. 'Ah, one might argue, of course, that it's not exactly ladylike to be lurking in the darkness.'

There you have it wrong. I am not in the darkness lurking. I am hiding in it. How else, altogether." Back into the shadows she pressed. He advanced and said, quietly, 'I shan't give you away.'

"You actually thought you might as well show yourself."

You're well and truly trapped.

" He loomed above Elizabeth and she could feel the prickly barricade behind her, he was right. She sighed in irritation. It already had to be bad, how much worse could this night get? He had just stepped into a sliver of moonlight, revealing his identity and she had her answer. Much worse. Her companion was the Margrave of Ralston, charming, devastatingly handsome, and one of London's most notorious rakes. His wicked smile pointed right at Elizabeth to match a wicked reputation.

She couldn't keep it from her voice - it was desperation she whispered,

'Oh no.' She couldn't let him see her. Not like this, by any stretch of the imagination... trussed up like a Christmas goose... An Indian sunset Christmas goose.

"Moppet, what could be so bad?"

Both the lazy endearment and the look around for an escape route warmed her. He stood a good six inches taller than her and close enough to touch now. She felt small for the first time in a long time. Dainty, even. She had to escape.

"I...I must go. "If they find me... here ... with you ,..."

She failed to finish the sentence. He knew what would happen.

"Who are you?" His presence took in the soft angles of her face with narrowed eyes in the darkness.

"Wait..." She made her eyes flash with recognition,

"You're Aragon's daughter." I noticed you earlier."

"I'm sure you did, my lord," she said sarcastically.

'It'd be kind of hard to miss you, actually.' She quickly clapped her hand over her mouth when she realized that she had just spoken so baldly.

He chuckled. "Yes. As far as gowns go, it isn't the most flattering of gowns. A reluctant laugh slipped out of her.

"How very diplomatic of you. You may admit it. Plenty of people would tell you that I look too much like an apricot."

This time, he laughed aloud. "An apt comparison. "But is there ever a point once you look enough like an apricot?"

He said she should sit on the bench, she did.

"Likely not." She smiled broadly, surprised she wasn't as embarrassed about his agreement as she might have expected. No indeed, she found it rather freeing.

"She's desperate for a daughter she can dress like a porcelain doll." I shall never be so a child as to be proud of this, to think it was me who did it, and then to brag about it. I long for my sister to come out and keep the countess from paying no attention to my person."

'How old is your sister?' he asked, already knowing the answer because he wasn't that far wrong,

'eight,' she said, mournfully. "Ah. "An understatement."

"Don't say that." In fact, she looked up at the star filled sky.

"I shall be long on the shelf by the time she makes her debut,"

I say. "No, what makes you so certain you're shelf bound?"

It was sidelong glance she cast upon him. 'I like your chivalry my lord, but your pretended ignorance affronts both of us,'

I finished. She stared down at her hands, then she said,

'My choices are quite limited. When he didn't respond she said,

'Okay - now for the impoverished, the aged, the deadly dull.'

He chuckled. "Oh, it's true." "I find that difficult to believe."

I'm not the kind of young woman to put a gentleman in his place. I can see with eyes, anyone can see with eyes." And I see no such thing."

He lowered his voice to soft and rich as velvet as he reached up and stroked her cheek.

She was certain that she heard her breath, being caught in her throat with a wave of intense awareness. Unable to resist she leaned into his caress, and moved his hand to grasp her chin.

He sighed, and asked softly, "What is your name?"

"The woman winced. She knew the coming." She closed her eyes again, embarrassed by the pompous, overwrought name - a name so pompous and overwrought that nobody had ever dared to put on a child, unless it was a hopelessly romantic mother with an unhealthy obsession with Shakespeare. "cornella." He tried the name on his tongue.

"As in, Caesar's wife?" She nodded, the blush flaring right up again.

He smiled. Besides, I must make it a point to get to know your parents better. However, it is a bold name, to say the least." "It's a terrible name."

"Bunk." Empress of Rome. Strong and beautiful and smart as hell and surrounded by all the men who had no idea who she was. And she saw the future that she stood strong for her husband's assassination. She is a marvelous namesake."

He spoke and shook her chin firmly as he did so. In response to his frank lecture, she was helpless. Her reply never came because he kept speaking.

"Now, I must take my leave. There you go, Lady cornella, you must walk back to the dance hall, raising your head. There is any chance you can do that?"

He stood, tugging her chin one final time before using his feet to move away, leaving her cold in his wake. He stood and she stood with him. Looking starry eyed.

"Yes, my lord." "Good girl." His breath fanning the hair at her nape, warming her in the cool April night, he leaned closer and whispered.

"I, you, are an empress." If you behave as one, they will have no choice but to treat you as one. I already do..."

He stopped and she held her breath, waiting for the words.

"Your Highness." He was off and disappearing deeper into the maze and Elizabeth gave him a silly grin. She did not hesitate to accompany him, as she was so close to him.

This prince of a man who had sighted her, not her dowry, not her horrible dress, but her - she would have followed him anywhere. But if I am an empress, than he is only a man fit to be my emperor. She didn't have to go far to catch him.

The maze opened several yards in on a clearing with a large, gleaming fountain surrounded by two cherubs. Her prince hunkered there in a silvery glow on his broad shoulders and lengthy legs. She could have breathed but her chest tightened by his appearance, exquisite, like he was chiseled from marble. Then she saw the woman in his arms.

Her eyes went wide against the look of her hand flying to her lips and her mouth opened slightly in a silent gasp. She had never seen something... so wonderfully scandalous in all the seventeen years. Turned white by the moonlight, her blond hair, her pale gown gossamer in the darkness - the moonlight had laid its hand upon her paramour.

He stepped back into the shadows, peering around the corner of the barricade, half wishing she hadn't followed, but entirely unable to look away from their embrace. My, how they kissed. Deep in the pit of her stomach was youthful surprise replaced by slow burn of jealousy, never wanting to be something or someone else so very much in all her life.

For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine it was she in his arms: her fingers traversing him through her long, delicate ones weaving through his dark gleaming hair; her finely wrought body he stroked and molded; her mewls in the dark as he sparked that thing that made his body electrify; her sighs rippling the peacefulness of the night.

Elizabeth watched his lips trailing down the long column of the woman's throat, and she ran her fingers down the same path on her own neck as she couldn't resist pretending he was her hand's touch feather light. His hand stroking up his lover's smooth, contoured bodice and grabbing the edge of the delicate gown, pulling it down baring one high, small breasts to the night.

Wickedly his teeth flashed as he looked down at the perfect mound and said 'Gorgeous' before lowering his lips to its tip, pebbled by the cool air and the warmth of his embrace. Unable to control her pleasure in his arms, Elizabeth's paramour threw her head back in ecstasy, Elizabeth could not tear her eyes from the spectacle of them, her hand on her own breast, feeling its tip harden beneath her silk gown, imagining it was his hand, his mouth on her.

"Ralston..." The clearing shook, shaken by the name, carried out on a feminine moan and Elizabeth snapped back to reality. Upon intruding upon the scene, she dropped her hand, as if in shock, and whirled away from the scene. Rushed as she dashed through the maze, desperate for escape, she came to a sudden stop at the marble bench where she started to potter in her garden. She breathed heavily, ashamed of herself. Ladies did not eavesdrop.

They certainly didn't eavesdrop in that manner either. Add to that, and fantasies would serve her no good. A devastating pang of sorrow was pushed aside as the truth ran through her. She would never have the magnificent Margrave of Ralston, or anyone like him.

The things he'd said to her earlier, that had been truth - er, not truth, but the lies of an inveterate seducer, well chosen ones likely to please her and cajole her off, while he feasted in dark tryst with his ravishing beauty - she felt an acute certainty that these were not truth, but instead the lies of an inveterate seducer. He hadn't given one thing a thought. She was not Cornella, Empress of Rome, no. She was plain, old Elizabeth. And she always would be.